Lotus Esprit Turbo Challenge - New Atari STe VS Amiga version analysed
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- čas přidán 12. 09. 2024
- AL TV #10 - Lotus STe
From its conception on the Amiga, by Shaun Southern and Andrew Morris, to its conversion on the Atari ST, to its final enhancement on the Atari STe by Jonathan Thomas. The complete history of the racing game that changed it all, Lotus Esprit Turbo Challenge. This is my homage to the amazing Amiga, the fantastic Atari ST, the 16 bit bedroom coders and the awesome homebrewers of today!
#Amiga #Atari #Lotus #GremlinGraphics #MagneticFields
If you like the video and want to see more, give it a thumbs up!
Deep interview with Jonathan Thomas : www.atarilegen...
Thank you to Darren Doyle for the wonderful intro animation. Get your retrogame fix at www.bitmapsoft... and www.greyfoxboo...
50 best ST games book at www.zafinnbooks...
Music :
Chasey End / MR Coke : demozoo.org/mu...
Lotus main theme / Shaun Southern : demozoo.org/mu...
Lotus main theme / Ben Daglish
Silly Venture 2010 / Yerzmyey : demozoo.org/mu...
Lotus Esprit Turbo Challenge 2 Title / Barry Leitch : demozoo.org/mu...
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Already a really good game on the ST, I'm not convinced that you'd've really missed the road striping if you didn't know it was there on the Amiga, but even better now. As an Amiga fan who respects the ST, I'd say the STe closes somewhere between 60-80% of the gap between the 520ST and A500. Music aside, this seems in that kind of range. I love seeing unofficial updates or reconversions for systems that were underexploited in their heyday. Great work Jonathan. The unofficial Pac-Mania is great too, and that Shadow of the Beast rolling demo looks impressive (much as I'm no great fan of the Amiga original, gameplay-wise).
One of the most impressive and informative video comparaison of these 2 worlds...Atari ST and Amiga.
Lotus is a case study that is very well presented to us by your influencial presentation. Many thanks for your effort man!
Wow, thank you so much. Glad to hear.
wow. very nice video. Was about to make a video comparing the ST and Amiga version of Lotus, and found this while doing pre research. Now I see there is no need for another video! This is great :)
There can never be enough Lotus videos ;) and thanks for the very nice comment...
"Was gonna happen" What a modern retro punch line !
Nice work with the STE version, but I have hoped it would have been on par with the Amiga version. I wonder how competitive a well-written SNES and/or Megadrive version would be compared to the Amiga version.
I just played it on the Falcon. Quite a bit faster ;-) Unfortunately the engine still sounded like a chiptune version of a vacuum cleaner. (AWESOME video btw)
Thank you for this background information. I have just began playing the original games once more. You are keeping these memories alive which is really great and your video was splendid.
Thank you!
Lotus 1 & 2 are still my fav racing games today. Lotus 1 got ported to the 8 bit machines as well (c64, cpc, zx).
Lotus2 is to me the best Lotus of them all. It requires less of the hardware. Except when you have an 020 or faster, then Lotus3 becomes fluid. It is a bit choppy on 000.
I'm the best of the best. Didn't know!!! ha
Annnd I've just seen the credit at the end. Thank you Maarten :)
Ah perfect! Cheers Steve.
came here from RetroSpector78 video recomending this channel, i wasnt disapointed, great work!!.. Was always an amigan who also loved very much ST but never had the chance to own it...
This was a brilliant video! The ST was meant as a budget 16-bit computer that was retailed for less than two thirds of the Amiga price so the Amiga version of Lotus being better is simply what you paid for. In other words: the Amiga was dope but, for its time and price, the ST was dope too!
But, while the ST got plenty of attention back then, the STe sadly was largely overlooked so it's nice that it's getting more attention lately and that STe port of Lotus is very impressive! And yeah, It'd be great to get upgraded STe versions of Lotus 2 and 3 too...
Anyway keep up the good work. In fact I've discovered your website (Atari Legend) only some months ago but it was a nice surprise and I especially loved the numerous interviews that you gathered there. Those are valuable, very precious material and I hope that you'll manage to keep on expanding that section of the site.
Thank you for the amazing feedback. It is nice to know I'm doing things right and that people enjoy the videos ;-)
I am an Atari guy at heart and share your opinion. There are more interviews to come. In a few hours a new interview with Jonathan Thomas should go online, with loads of technical details about Lotus ;-) More to come!
@@AtariLegend Oooh I can't wait to read that! I'm always on the lookout for behind the scene interviews, especially about how games are made.
By the way I added you to my recommended channels alongside some other cool ST buddies around 👍
I really enjoyed Lotus on ST as a kid. As I didn't know any better ;)
Very interesting, but no side by side comparison despite it being a split screen game!
I may have to do it myself...
Great conversion indeed.
I did one a couple of months ago about frame rate comparing 3 systems, ST, STE, Amiga.
Also for the mod, it would also be very hard to squeeze it on two channels.
Your review is excellent.
Thanks a lot for the feedback.
This is awesome, AL!
Thank you. Glad you liked it.
Jonathan's Revenge!!!! LOL
i loved this video mate. AL vids are the beST.
Well, you and your work were my inspiration in this one (and you are an inspiration always of course ;-) ... I hope you watched till the end ;)
@@AtariLegend Maarten, your videos are one of few I watch from start to end. ST Hollywood mate. Thank you!
@@AtariCrypt Like I said, YOU are the best of the best! ;-)
Superb video. Game, story, production, illustrations... AL rulez.
Thank you Vincent.
The STE has DMA sound capabilities, which means it can play 8-bit stereo samples of up to 50KHz quality without any cpu overhead. That also means that all mixing is done with the cpu. Now the amiga has 4 hardware channels but it only outputs stereo sound, that means that the channels are mixed using the Paula chip without any cpu overhead. That is not though the whole story. The STE also features the YM sound chip as well as the LMC1992 that can do lots of interesting effects, such as treble, bass etc. From a practical standpoint, the STE can play MODs but it will have to use the CPU to do the mixing of the channels and that is at many cases costly.
But it is still much improved over the ST, STFM version...
I've learned so much today, thanks to your video. Brilliant.
Thank you. Really nice to know you liked it.
Thanks for the video, really enjoyed it.
Ps. Jon do Lotus 2
Thanks for the feedback. Much appreciated. And yes, Jon, do lotus 2! ;)
Excellent video, thanks!! 👏🏻👏🏻
Thanks for watching!
Very cool video, thanks a lot to show this new version on ste 😉
I'd have a 520stf in 1986, and always have, but all my Friends have Amiga 😂
Always enjoy your vidéos...
Great to hear. Thank you.
another fantastic piece of informative history. awesome man..amazing as always ;)
Well, thanks to your intro and outro! ;-)
Mega Thanks for showing Pole Postion from the Coin-Op Book..awesome mate thanks!!
@@Flashback-Gamer More to come!
Great video. I like the details of the chip usage. Ha! Shout out to AtariCrypt! :)
As i said over on twitter, the STE would have benefitted from the 16mhz cpu and more ram, possibly making the 1040STE the base model. Not game related but I never understood why Atari didnt buy the rights to nvdi and build it into to tos as well, that is a big boost to gem for little cost in the scheme of things to Atari.
Love the video anyway, have you seen the shadow of the beast ste demo? Another amazing achievement.
I have seen the sotb demo and it is amazing. And a out NVDI, I have this one on my list of possible videos. Would love to do a full retrospect with the creator of that amazing piece of software.
Thanks for the nice feedback.
@@AtariLegend be interesting 5o see what the creator of nvdi has to say. I look forward to it. Coding for the ST was my happiest time in computing.
Holly C! Where did you find that photo of Shiraz Shivji in field surrounded with Atari Megas? :D
GREAT GRAT VIDEO! Stay /|\
Honestly, I just googled it...
Great video ! Thanks. And I'm with you about your last words. It would be nice to see these updates on the sequels too :-p
YES definitely! I want to see more STe enhanced games.
I knew this period with my 1040 STe and it was so frutrating
Great!
Great video about this game, with interesting background infos! Enjoyable to watch! 👍
There also is a harddisk compatible version of this STE game out now by P. Petari!
I already posted this (with a link) some hours ago, but the comment somehow vanished. Had the same problem with another video comment with link today. Seems that this is no longer allowed by YT?! 😕
Oh? I have no idea. I will look into this. Peter released his HD support version when my video was already recorded, so ... yeah :-s But of course, he is amazing and if it was released sooner, it would be in this video as well ...
Great video Marty. Keep them coming, they're so tasty.
:-D thanks Eddy!
Awesome video dude! 😁
Thank you
One of my best buds at school had an st or ste we used to play all sorts on it I think one of my favs was bombjack on st because the sound was less deep, personally I prefer the Amiga and had a 500 because mostly the game sound was deeper and things like xenon 2 lost the in game music and just had the fx sounds so it did not sound as good but as I say not everything was better.
Amazing story and great video!!!
Thank you, means a lot to me!
I'm a complete noob concerning the Atari ST product line but from what you are saying there are machines with a blitter (Ste?) and some without (stock ST?)
moreover do you know about programming resources and / or documentation about blitter and so on for atari ST ?
Yes, the 520 and 1040st did not have a blitter. The Blitter was introduced in de mega st line of computers around 1987 and the STe after it. About resources, I am not an ST programmer myself, but a simple search on www.atari-forum.com will probably have all the answers. There is also a very active Facebook group or you could contact Jonathan Thomas on Twitter (retroracing), he is constantly updating ST games, making use of the blitter...
❤❤❤
You cant have Amiga without ST, and you cant gave ST without Amiga. They just share so much dna between them. It is true that the Amiga had better sound, and the ST had DIN plugs for Midi. And with a bit more effort when programming, the ST is nearly on par with the Amiga. However if you have one of those aprox 20 Midi interfaces that were created for the Amiga. Then the Amiga will leave the ST in the dust. Except perhaps on the sequencer software side of things.
I will not debate that. The Amiga is a much more capable machine. The ST was a low budget machine, designed and created in record time. But yes, they share a lot DNA, just look at their engineers. I am an ST freak, but I have loads of respect for the Amiga and its scene...
@@AtariLegend I would say, that if it was not for two factors. Then ST and Amiga would not have been. One was the CEO's at Atari, refusing Jay's proposal to go with 16 bit. The other factor was Tramiel leaving Commodore and buying Atari. Both platforms are the result of the same people having a finger in it on various points in time.
That was what I meant with it. 😉
@@AtariLegend amiga is basicly a 16bit next gen atari.
But without the dev budget.
The st had big budget behind it but the dev time and product to market was nothing short of historic.
They are both good machines.
But my heart is in amiga for dev budget. Best machine with smallest dev budget.
If people back in the day understood these things there would of been less arguing.
They are both good for what they are and what it took to make them.
There is no secret to making a powerful home computer.
Its about the budget and the big managers choices.
Then can the home consumer aford to buy it .
Company has to make money.
Customer.has to aford it.
The Amiga is what the Atari should have been. But Atari didn't want it, they didn't expect consumers to want home computers that kept up with technology.
Then Amiga did the same.
That's why ARM is the future.
@@davidwuhrer6704 In a way yes. That was one of many aproaches. Atari were also run with the old Commodore idea at that time, due to Jack owning it, that produced as cheap as possible were the way to go. By the 90's it was just bad to run a company like that. Commodore also dropped the ball, by nit keeping up with the 10 year headstart they had in 1985. No evolution, only minor upgrades in architecture untill 1992.
With the amiga versions I always assumed that the copper chip was drawing some of the ground strips & dual playfield was employed.
Dual playfield mode restricts you to 7 foreground colors, which is not a lot. A better way to do the road would be to take advantage of the way planar graphics work and set the palette up something like this:
0 = road
1 = off road
2 = lane marker/white rumble strip
3 = red rumble strip
4+ = everything else
Drawing road/non road would only require touching one bit plane, and drawing the lane markers would also require touching only one bit plane. So this would be pretty fast, and leave you with plenty of colors for all the cars, obstacles, trackside decorations etc.
I'm pretty sure the copper is being used to make the horizontal bands on the road though. Anything else would be silly.
Yes I agree some to some extents. Prioritising colours from zero upwards speeds up reaction speeds.
That's a trick I learnt early in my home computer days. Where you use basic(mixed with machine code routines) line numbers in steps of one instead of 10s
Back to the 16bits.
I coded a demo in my bedroom way back in the early 90s depicting a classic road track.
I got the idea for this after playing a copied version of Agony for the aniga.
I toyed around with XOR at first to draw strips along the screen and then pasted objects to create the road strips. The end result was a roadway different to the roadside in colour.
That's as far as I got with it. But it moved like outrun in the arcade. I can remember feeling wow... :)
hi, nice video but how come you didn't mention Vroom? which was arguably the best racing game on both Amiga and Atari ?
I am a big fan of Vroom and its creator Daniel Macré. Vroom is my personal favorite racer on the ST and if you browse through my videos, you will see it makes my top 10 best ST moments ;) but this video was about Lotus...
Thanks for the nice feedback.
glad i didnt bother with atari amiga rocksssssssssssssssss
I expected the STE to be better..
I totally understand this. If you grew up with the Amiga version, there is no substitute. Keep in mind this game was build for that machine. The ST ain't no Amiga. It's a bit like comparing the ZX Spectrum to the C64 perhaps. But keep in mind that the original coder of Lotus got in touch with Jonathan Thomas to congratulate him, as he was so impressed with this result. So definitely something was done right ;)
@@AtariLegend I didn't want to say the ST version was bad .. probably he did what's possible with the STE
What I meant was, that I didn't know about the shortcomings in regards to the Blitter and his (non) integration into the system.
I alwas thought the STE was mostly on par to the Amiga.
But there also is another thing I am not sure about:
The DMA for playing PCM/samples. Is there a big difference between the Amiga's Paula as a dedicated sample player and the STE's DMA audio playback? Or in other words: Is the process of the STE plaxing sampled sounds, still to be sonsidred a 'trick'? Or is it a 'normal' thing like on the Amiga? :)
@@elmariachi5133 I am not the biggest hardware buff, but I think it is more of a trick. Keep in mind the STe still has the YM chip as well for sound, while PAULA was a dedicated soundchip/synthesizer. But I think @Gridleaderretro is more suited to answer this question...
OK, that's what I thought, too.
I just got confused by people sometimes saying, the STE needing additional system resources, when playing back audio through DMA - which seemed to be in conflict with the STE's DMA playback actually being supposed to be an resource saving advantage compared to the classic ST.
So I now think, that the STE seems to sit inmidst of the ST in the Amiga in regards of resource usage when playing PCM, and playing back samples through DMA is just an improvement, but no compensation for not having fully PCM capable hardware.
@@elmariachi5133 not that I want to push you to the site, but I did a detailed interview with Jonathan Thomas and also Junosix (jamie hamshere) who did the music. You will find more technical details in there as wel in regards of the ym and dma mix : www.atarilegend.com/interviews/50
Also did an interview with Jamie separately.
Thought it might be interesting...